Transcript of Meeting...A.5 ‐ Transcript of Meeting INITIAL STUDY GENERAL PLAN AND DEVELOPMENT...

City of Fresno General Plan and Development Code Update Master Environmental Impact Report

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A.5 ‐ Transcript of Meeting

INITIAL STUDY GENERAL PLAN AND DEVELOPMENT CODE UPDATE

SCOPING MEETING

Tuesday, November 27, 2012 6:00 p.m.

City Of Fresno Council Chambers 2600 Fresno Street Fresno, CA 93721

____________________________________________________________________________

ATTENDEES:

Mike Houlihan, Michael Brandman Associates

Keith Bergthold, Development & Resource Management, Assist. Planning

Director/Secretary

Trai Her, Staff

(This verbatim transcript of the 11-27-12 Scoping Meeting was prepared at the request of Keith

Bergthold, Assistant Planning Director/Secretary of Development & Resource Management, City

of Fresno.)

MR. HOULIHAN: Okay, I’m going to go ahead and get started. Thank you very much for

attending this Scoping Meeting for the General Plan and Development Code

Update. This is a process where over the last couple years there has been the

development of the General Plan and the Development Code, and what we’re

doing is assessing the potential effects of the project, which includes the

updates of both the General Plan and the Development Code.

Since we do have a small group here, for those of you who currently lives

within the city limits, as opposed to outside the city limits – okay. And then those that live within the county but within the Sphere of influence – okay. And then outside the county -- outside the city and outside the sphere of influence. Okay.

Well, I’m going to go ahead and get started. Again, this is the Scoping Meeting. The outline that I’m going to cover includes describing what the purpose of this meeting is, describing the project. In describing the project that’s going to be – there’s a lot going on, so there’s a number of slides that I will be going through to describe what it is that we are evaluating, which has been developed by the City during the process of the General Plan development and the Development Code Update.

Yes?

MR. BERGTHOLD: I think everyone’s interested to know who you are, sir.

General Plan and Development Code Update Initial Study Scoping Meeting – Verbatim Transcript November 27, 2012 Page 2 MR. HOULIHAN: Oh, okay. By the way, I’m Mike Houlihan with Michael Brandman

Associates. We’re currently preparing the Environmental Impact Report

under contract with the City.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Where are you from?

MR. HOULIHAN: I’m from Irvine.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Okay.

MR. HOULIHAN: And then I also have a couple of associates here, Dave Mitchell and then Jay (indiscernible).

Okay, also I’ll describe the CEQA document we are preparing, the potential environmental issues that we are addressing. Again, these are a preliminary list. That’s why you’re here, so that you can provide some input. I’ll describe the CEQA process and then also the schedule.

First, the purpose of the Scoping Meeting, again, to describe the project, explain the CEQA process, identify the issues, and then record the public comments. The proposed project, three different items here: the Planning Area I’m going to describe, the General Plan Update, and then the Development Code Update.

First, the Planning Area. There is areas within the city that’s part of the Planning Area, areas outside the city but within the sphere of influence, and then areas that are – there is an area to the north that’s outside the city, outside the sphere of influence, however, it’s an area that both the County and City have agreed that the City would include as part of their plan for the City Planning Area. And this is a map depicting those three areas. The purple – first of all, the brown, the darker brown is the area within the city; the purple is the area outside the city but within the sphere of influence; and the white in the northern part is the area we described.

First of all, the General Plan Update, what’s the purpose of this? It’s to set policies and programs to guide the physical development for future development. The general plans are required to have seven elements, and the project includes a comprehensive update of the currently approved 2025 General Plan.

This slide gives you an idea of what the required elements are by the State of California, those elements that the City has within their current General Plan and elements that the City is proposing as part of the General Plan Update. As you can see, many of the elements – almost all the elements are very similar to the current 2025 General Plan. However, there are a couple of issue areas, the Historic and the Healthy Communities that is by itself a new element.

General Plan and Development Code Update Initial Study Scoping Meeting – Verbatim Transcript November 27, 2012 Page 3

Now, as part of the General Plan Update, there will be amendments and also repeals of existing specific plans and community plans within the city. The purpose of this is so that the goals and policies within those plans have been incorporated within the update. And this is a list of those that are amending and those that are being repealed, and on the next slide is a continuation of that list. And you’ll notice the top two, you’ll see it’s repealed and also amended. In those two community plans, there may be portions of it repealed and portions of it amended. That’s why they’re listed on both sides. Okay, also part of the General Plan Update, there is a greenhouse gas reduction plan that will be prepared.

The proposed Land Use Diagram, which showed – you have looked and seen over on the side, I’ll show it up here, and then the buildout of the Planning Area. Now, the purpose of our environmental evaluation is to evaluate what the buildout impacts will be from the implementations of the General Plan Update. So if all the land uses that are identified on this map are built out, what are the potential effects that will happen? And what we’re doing is evaluating and comparing it to existing development.

The inset shows the area Downtown. And there’s been a generalization – a part generalization and part more specific land uses that are identified for Downtown. And as many of you know, there’s currently a Downtown planning process that is occurring, and the purpose of including this is to make sure there are – there’s consistency between the two plans, between the General Plan and the Downtown Plan.

Now, the Planning Area is divided into two parts -- I’ll show some tables and so forth -- the Planning Area that’s outside the Downtown area and then the Downtown area. First, the area outside the Downtown area. What this shows are the land use categories and how they are modified. For example, on this is residential. There are some modifications to these in allowance of densities by type of use. And here’s land use categories for Commercial. As you can see, many of these are similar, but there are – have been changes, and then that’s what’s being proposed as part of the General Plan Update. Again, the purpose of me going through this is at least for you to understand, what is the project that we are evaluating and what the potential effects will be.

This shows Industrial, Mixed Use and Other uses. As you can see, the area outside of Downtown, there is no Mixed Uses currently within the 2025 General Plan. However, under the General Plan Update there is going to be these three, Corridor Center Mixed Use, a Regional Mixed Use and Neighborhood Mixed Use.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Could you say that again?

MR. HOULIHAN: Currently, in the area outside of the Downtown area, there is no Mixed Uses


that are proposed within the 2025 General Plan. But this General Plan Update, as the City has gone through the update process and defining the General Plan land uses, there are three land use categories that have been developed for the areas outside of Downtown that are Mixed Use, and the three that are listed there are the three land use categories.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Do you have these charts for us to take?

MR. HOULIHAN: Uh --

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Because I can’t find them in the booklet.

MR. HOULIHAN: No. These charts actually are ones that are included in the project description in the Initial Study. Now, they aren’t specific – Okay. There are – these specific slides are not in there, because I had to divide up the tables in order to present it, but each of the tables are located in that project description.

Now, for the Downtown area – for the Downtown area, for Residential, there is one designation of Residential, and that designation is “Neighborhoods.” Under the 2025 General Plan, as you can see, there is a number of Residential community – or Residential categories.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Would making some of the old high rise buildings into condominiums, is that included as Residential?

MR. HOULIHAN: Mixed Use. And we haven’t got to mixed use yet for Downtown. Commercial, as you can see, there is no stand-alone Commercial designations. You’ll see under Mixed Use the Commercial is joined with Residential and Office to create this Mixed Use designation.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Okay, now I’m going to ask you, no stand-alone Commercial use is to be allowed in Downtown?

MR. HOULIHAN: That’s – that’s not what I said.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Okay. What do you mean?

MR. HOULIHAN: The designation which allows a mixed use of uses. Doesn’t mean that you can’t just solely develop an office or solely develop a commercial development. The designation allows a multiple use. That’s all that that mixed use designation identifies.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: So you added Mixed Use to singular Mixed Uses, which has been the case for years, right?

MR. HOULIHAN: For Downtown --

AUDIENCE MEMBER: For years they’ve been able to have Commercial and for years you’ve been


able to have Office, right?

MR. HOULIHAN: No – when – the mixed use I’m talking about is residential and non-residential.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: You can do that now. Today.

MR. HOULIHAN: Yes, and that’s why there’s Commercial Mixed Use I and Commercial Mixed Use II under the 2025 General Plan. So there’s a change in the amount and type of mixed uses that are being proposed for Downtown. And then we have industrial. Again, the Special District actually includes both light and heavy industrial uses. And then Other uses, Open Space and Public Facility. Again, there’s two designations of Public Facilities within the 2025 General Plan for Downtown.

Moving on, for the 2025 General Plan compared to the General Plan Update. This is important so that there’s an understanding how the planning has changed for the city and the sphere area. Again, the next slide will compare acreages that are planned under both General Plans.

Under here you’ll see for Residential there’s an increase in acreage. That would make sense; there’s going to be an increase – there’s planned to be an increase in population, so it would go hand in hand that there’s going to be an increase in Residential. Commercial, there’s a slight increase. Then there are some reductions, in Industrial, in Open Space because of a categorical -- how we’re categorizing what open space is, and then there’s Other. Other includes from streets to different right-of-ways and so forth, that aren’t specifically one of the other uses.

I want to identify the last row, which is the population at buildout. As you can see, for the 2025 General Plan, if that 2025 General Plan was built out, there would be about 790,000 people. Under the current General Plan Update there’s about 970,000. So it’s just around 200,000 additional persons that are being planned and changed.

Yes?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I don’t know what’s the protocol here, I came in late. I don’t want to interrupt you with a question and answer session, but it seems phenomenal that there’s a one-fourth reduction in industrial acreage allotted. I don’t understand that, even though it can be thrown in with wide open space or something. I can’t comprehend one-fourth.

MR. HOULIHAN: Okay, we’ll go through a question and answer so that I can at least provide a mike to those people, because the meeting is being recorded, so at least we can record the questions, okay?

Going on, for the Development Code Update, it’s a comprehensive update of


the City’s regulation of land use through zoning and the subdivision process and ordinance. That will include the revisions to the zone districts. As identified in the Initial Study, the – this Development Code Update is to incorporate contemporary planning and business practices and procedures. One of the benefits of going through this process is to go through a streamlining of entitlement process, and I’ll explain that a little bit more as I identify the type of environmental document that is being prepared. Also, other advantages, there’s providing incentives for development.

For the Downtown area, the existing zoning is being retained, although there is a correspondence between the proposed General Plan language that’s for Downtown and how they fit into the existing zones. As I mentioned before, the Downtown area is going through a different planning process that will end up going through a proposed zone change at that time. Also, the Development Code Update, as I mentioned, is being refined through the community plan and specific plan process for Downtown. Now, as far as the zone districts or the zone district revisions, I’m going to go through those areas that are outside the Downtown and those that are within.

Those that are outside the Downtown, this particular table identifies a correspondence from existing to what’s being proposed, and you’ll see in some categories there’s no corresponding current district as opposed to what’s being proposed. And as we go through this, there’s some proposed --- or some existing that don’t correspond to a proposed district.

These are Residential. As you can see, for example, the Mobile Home Single Family. There were two different, Trailer Park and Mobile Home, and now there’s just Mobile Home Park designation. These are the Commercial districts. Again, this is a correspondence between what’s the existing zone as opposed to the proposed zone. And then it goes through Employment districts. Same thing. And then continue with Employment, and then it gets into Mixed Use. As you can see, for the zoning there was no Mixed Use zoning that was outside the Downtown area. Then we have Open Space, Park and so forth. The Park designation becomes part of the – Keith, part of the Public Facility, so that’s one of the reasons why Open Space has reduced, reduced in that other slide, because it was part of Open Space previously, but now it’s part of Public Facilities. And then there’s currently and what’s being proposed, the overlay districts. Many of them will remain.

Now, the zone districts for the Downtown Planning Area, this is what I was explaining, where you have existing land uses that are being proposed – or existing land uses – actually, they’re not. They’re the planned land uses, on the left-hand side. On the right-hand side are the existing zoning categories that will remain in effect until at which time the Downtown project ends up


being approved and it’s modified. If it doesn’t, these won’t stay in effect. And again, this is still the Downtown area. As you can see, Neighborhoods is a catch-all for all the – all of the Residential categories.

Now, after I’ve described both the General Plan Update and the Development Code Update, now, what is it that we are evaluating as part of -- what’s our project? As I mentioned, future development within the Planning Area is what we are evaluating, so we are taking a look at what the existing development is and looking at what the proposed development is, and what is that difference or incremental increase between the two. So you’ll see on this slide, which is actually in that project description, but it’s split up into two or three slides here, you’ll see that there’s Residential, Commercial, Mixed Use, Open Space and so forth that we are evaluating as what the incremental increase is.

Now, these numbers, I realize that these numbers show that they’re pretty specific, but the City is going through a process to ensure that there’s a job-housing balance, so they may end up being modified some to make sure that we don’t – the City doesn’t have too much employment or too many residences. So they’re – it’s just being reviewed and potentially modified, so when the Draft EIR comes out, this incremental development may end up providing some modifications to it. But again, as you can see, the numbers are pretty large. The non-residential categories, actually, for the square footage is million square feet, and those are specific areas where we – there needs to be a review to make sure that they correspond to the proposed residential needs.

Now, at the bottom – now, again, this is the population. The number in the middle is the number you saw before for the General Plan Update, which is 970,000 people at buildout of the entire Planning Area. Currently, there’s just under 550,000, just under that, and so what we’re evaluating is this increase of 425,000 people.

Now, the CEQA document that we are evaluating – that we are preparing, it’s a Master EIR, and a Master EIR is one of the types of EIRs that are allowed by the State, and Fresno currently has a Master EIR for their 2025 General Plan. The advantages of using the Master EIR, they allow streamlining for later environmental evaluations. The streamlining can only occur if the potential effects of these future projects have been adequately discussed within the Master EIR. Now, if the effects have not been, then additional environmental documentation would have to be prepared, either an MND or one of the types of EIRs that are listed above.

Now, the last bullet, the adequacy of the Master EIR findings, needs to be evaluated once – at least once every five years. That’s to make sure that the – the environmental effects are still appropriately evaluated -- or identified.

General Plan and Development Code Update Initial Study Scoping Meeting – Verbatim Transcript November 27, 2012 Page 8 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Is that State law?

MR. HOULIHAN: Yes, under State law.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: New State law or --

MR. HOULIHAN: No, it’s been around since 1993 when Master EIR --


MR. HOULIHAN: -- came in as an allowed type of EIR.

Here’s a list of environmental – potential environmental issues. As you can see, all but one of the issue areas listed within the CEQA checklist are listed here. There’s only one that is not, that’s mineral resources. That -- mineral resources within the city is located along the San Joaquin River. That area is not actually being proposed to be changed under the current update, so therefore, there is no potential effect as a result of this project. So that’s why it’s been removed.

Now, the next set of slides identifies what are the specific issues that we are evaluating underneath these general categories. Now, I want you to take a look at these because if there is some subset of these issues that you want to bring forward, please write them down or remember them and then we’ll discuss what additional issues that you want addressed or you would like to see addressed in the Master EIR.

So first, the Aesthetics. We’re looking at scenic vistas, scenic resources, visual character and light and glare. Again, this is the increase of these areas as a result of this incremental development within the entire Planning Area.

Agriculture is farmland conversion. Under farmland conversion, in the 20 – or 2002 General Plan EIR for the 2025 General Plan, most – not all, but most of the Agriculture was actually overridden, but is identified as overridden. It was identified as significant impact with the development of the 2025 General Plan and there was some areas that were left identified still as Agriculture. That remaining area is going to be identified as being removed as Agriculture as a designation and therefore it’s a potential effect on agriculture. It doesn’t mean that agriculture can’t still remain in those locations, but there is a potential that it could be converted to an urban use.

Going on to Air Quality, looking at short-term and long-term emissions, sensitive receptors, and then also the odors.

Biological Resources, there’s a number of resources within the Planning Area that will be evaluated. These are general categories.

Cultural Resources, a big, hot issue, obviously, is Historical, looking at


structures, places and districts and what are the potential effects. Then archeological, paleontological and if there are any (indiscernible).

Geology and Soils, there’s a listing of different geotechnical constraints that we will be evaluating.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions. As I mentioned before, there’s a greenhouse gas reduction plan that we’re preparing.

Hazards and Hazardous Materials, anywhere from potential hazardous materials that are existing or generated as a result of future uses or handling of hazardous materials. And then also hazards relating to the airports. And then wildland fires.

Hydrology and Water Quality. We are coordinating with the Fresno Metropolitan Flood Control District in assessing the potential effects on the current basins. Again, we’re looking at full buildout of the city and what that entails and what are the – what additional facilities that might be needed to accommodate that future development.

Land Use Planning. We’ll be looking at, although it hasn’t been determined yet, but we’ll be looking at whether or not the proposed project, these proposed land uses are going to physically divide an established community. And then we’ll be looking at if there’s a conflict with existing applicable plans.

Noise, from short term to long term. Vibration. Vibration will primarily be during construction, if there’s some type of vibratory construction equipment that may need to be used, and then also aircraft noise.

We’ll be looking at Population and Housing, from inducement of the growth to potential displacement of existing housing if it’s located in an area that’s proposed for a different use.

Public Facilities. Again, this is a laundry list of the current public services that are being offered within the Planning Area. And Recreation.

And then Transportation. Obviously, this is a big issue because we have a substantial growth that we’re looking at given that this future buildout is not going to happen in 20 years, it’s not going to happen in 40 years. It will happen sometime in the future. However, we’re having to evaluate buildout because that is the plan that is being proposed. Right now there is no projected end date of full buildout of the city. Obviously, it will depend on economics and other issues. So the Transportation, we’ll be looking at automobile and truck and bicycle, pedestrian and transit. And then Utilities, from water, wastewater, storm drain, water supplies and landfills.

Okay, now going through the – oh, before I go off of the environmental


issues, just so that everyone understands, yes, we’re evaluating all these environmental issues, but if we’re identifying them as a potentially significant impact, we are identifying potential measures or policies in order to reduce -- potentially reduce those potential significant impacts to less than significant. There may be some that can be reduced. There’ll be others that might not be able to reduce, and if those areas cannot be reduced, then the City will have to determine that -- maybe a modification to their plan, or they might have to prepare a Statement of Overriding Consideration for that specific issue, or for a change of policy.

Now, going through the CEQA process, we begin with the scoping process. As everyone saw that we prepared a Notice of Preparation, this is the Scoping Meeting. The next process is preparing the Draft Master EIR, and once that is prepared it will be reviewed by the public, the public will provide comments, and we’ll also have a hearing. Again, the hearing is to provide comments, another forum to provide comments.

After we receive the comments, then we’ll be making – or we will be responding to those comments, and we’ll make some revisions to the EIR and create a Final Master EIR. That will be available for public review, and then it will be going to the Planning Commission and City Council for a decision on the EIR.

Now, the schedule. Our scoping began in September because one of our meetings that we had early on was with Caltrans in order to move along our traffic evaluation. So that’s primarily what started in September, and then at the beginning of November we sent out the Notice of Preparation, and that was part of the scoping process. The scoping process we’ve identified as ending when the public review period ends for the Notice of Preparation, and then we’ll go through Draft Master EIR preparation. We began that back in September, creating existing conditions and kind of waiting for comments to make sure that we’re headed in the right direction and covering the issues that are raised during the Notice of Preparation and this public Scoping Meeting. And then the public review draft is expected to go out – and this is an estimate – in March. And we’re anticipating – State law identifies 45 days, but the City has identified that they’re looking at a 60-day review period in order to provide additional time, because it will be a – many issues that will be evaluated. And then the public meeting for the Draft EIR is anticipated in April currently.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: What kind of meeting is that?

MR. HOULIHAN: That is again to -- as I mentioned before --

AUDIENCE MEMBER: An informational meeting?

MR. HOULIHAN: Information and a forum for comments, similar – it’s comments that can be


made orally.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Isn’t that before there’s a General Plan Meeting.

MR. HOULIHAN: This is for the EIR. Oh, oh, oh --

AUDIENCE MEMBER: But the project that the EIR is for is the General Plan and the General Plan, I think, the way I understand it, the hearing for that is late in 2015.

MR. HOULIHAN: That is, I believe, approval hearings, correct?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: How can you have a hearing on EIR before you get a project?

MR. HOULIHAN: Oh. The hearing that I’m referring to is the hearing to receive comments on the Draft EIR.


MR. HOULIHAN: It isn’t to --

AUDIENCE MEMBER: For public comment.

MR. HOULIHAN: Yeah, public comment.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: All right.

MR. HOULIHAN: Meeting. Although I called it a hearing.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah. Okay.

MR. HOULIHAN: And then the Final Master EIR expected to be completed around July, and then those hearings are anticipated in August and September. Again, months could change some as we go through this process, depending on how quickly forward we go through this process.

Okay, this is the last slide. I know it’s been a lot of slides. Public comments on the scope of this Master EIR. I wanted to make sure there were different forums. As you saw in the public notice, you can provide comments by email, or by written letter to Keith Bergthold, and then we’re also identifying that you can fill out comment cards at this meeting if that is your choice. Again, the public review period for the Notice of Preparation ends December 6th, I think. December 6th.

So at this time what we’ll do is, I’m going to pass the mike around for those that want to provide comments on the issues that are being evaluated, if there’s any specific issues. If there is a question regarding the project, we will attempt to respond regarding at least what we presented as the project components.


So would anyone like to start?

RECORDING SEC’TRY: Could you ask them to give their name, please?

MR. HOULIHAN: Yes. I’ll have you give their -- your name before I give this to you.

ASHLEY WERNER: Hi, I’m Ashley Warner with California Rural Legal Assistance. I just have a quick process-related question that was kind of (indiscernible). So I’m just wondering how does the fact that the details of the General Plan and Development Code, the fact that those are still being worked out and in progress impact your Master EIR creation process.

MR. HOULIHAN: Okay. As far as the – any modifications that occur in the General Plan Update or the Development Code Update, we’re having to make some revisions to our evaluation, so as we go through this process, if there are revisions that result in changes to the environmental – potential environmental impacts, we’re having to make these revisions. Again, we’re not trying to get too far ahead in the impact evaluation. As I mentioned, we started in September, but that was more of defining the existing conditions. We haven’t – we’re just at the beginning of trying to identify potential impacts.

VINCE CORRELL: Vince Correll. Where do you deal with the transmission of fluids and electricity?

MR. HOULIHAN: Normally I won’t respond to every question, but I will respond to some of them.

As far as electricity, that will be part of the Public Services. It’s one of the areas that we’re dealing with electricity and natural gas with PG&E in evaluating the (indiscernible).

As far as fluids, I’m assuming that’s water and wastewater? That will be under our Utilities and Services, and we have an engineer that is evaluating both the potential impacts to the existing facilities for both sewer and water, and as far as water, also looking at water (indiscernible).

JOSE BARRAZA: I’m certainly not sure how it’s going to all turn out in the General Plan, but I’m a little curious because I’m kind of thrown off by the fact that --

AUDIENCE MEMBER: What’s your name?

JOSE BARRAZA: Oh, my name is Jose Luis Barraza. Curious, because you have very distinctively put the Downtown Plan area separate from the General Plan. In past plans I think they were —well, other plans were processing both periods but they werent’ distinctly placed out of – is that something new? And also, they’re both turning at the same time and they have – they’re going through an EIR – an EIR process themselves, and as well as they’re utilizing the concepts of the Codes that are being proposed here. So are


these all moving and being costly as well?

MR. HOULIHAN: Why there is two different processes?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Indiscernible) if you have to or --

MR. HOULIHAN: First of all, one is the General Plan and one’s an accommodation of a community plan and specific plan, so there are different levels of housing. Your question as to why they are separated, it is twofold. One is there’s a substantial number of uses Downtown, and you put it at the same scale and you wouldn’t be able to see what’s actually being proposed Downtown. That’s why it was separated and enlarged. The other reason is because there is a Downtown planning process going on that covers that (indiscernible).

Now, when the Downtown goes through their process, they’re going to have to go through a General Plan land use (indiscernible), and as I mentioned for zoning, the zoning that is being identified under the Development Code for the city is the existing zoning. And what’s the corresponding existing zoning? When the Downtown plan goes through, they’re going to have to go through a zone change in order to convert those into the zoning classifications that the County (indiscernible).

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Does that mean that they’re not going to do that for the rest of the city?

MR. HOULIHAN: There’s – for the rest of the city there’s zoning districts that are being proposed. Those are the ones that I (indiscernible).

JEFF ROBERTS: Can I ask a question?

MR. HOULIHAN: Yeah.

JEFF ROBERTS: I’m Jeff Roberts from Granville Homes. I was going to ask – make some comments but I’ll just keep it simple. I guess it’s a yes or no answer. Is the City going to rezone property consistent with this new General Plan designation if it’s approved?

MR. HOULIHAN: Yes.

JEFF ROBERTS: Yes.

MR. HOULIHAN: As long as -- There’s specific zoning that is being proposed for each parcel, and those zoning classifications are the ones that I identified up on the screen. Now, I didn’t give you a map that shows the zone districts. That will – that should be --

MR. BERGTHOLD: We’ll eventually have one of those.

MR. HOULIHAN: Yeah.

General Plan and Development Code Update Initial Study Scoping Meeting – Verbatim Transcript November 27, 2012 Page 14 JEFF ROBERTS: But the City’s going to do the zoning?

MR. HOULIHAN: The City -- it’s part of the Development Code.

JEFF ROBERTS: Yes or no?

MR. BERGTHOLD: It’s more than yes or no. We’re still trying to figure out the strategy on what the City would initiate versus what it would leave alone, and I think I’ve mentioned that in a number of our workshops and other meetings, that we’re trying to determine where these key areas would be to go in and shape City rezoning and which areas we would just leave alone.

DAVID WELLS: So in other words, you can buy a piece of property now and it will -- the zoning can be changed three years from now before you build on it?

MR. BERGTHOLD: I think I’m going to need you to ask questions after you’ve said who you are.

DAVID WELLS: I’m – I’m sorry. David Wells. My name’s David Wells. So I’ve been a resident for 45 years here in Fresno, and I’m trying to understand what’s going on here as best as I can, and I’m not particularly stupid. I might be a little stupid. But I – you’re – it sounds like doublespeak to me. Are you saying that you can buy a piece of property now and three years from now, when the City finally figures out what they’re going to do with all of this that’s going on, that the City will come in and relabel the zoning at the City’s desire? Is that what you’re saying here?

MR. BERGTHOLD: Hey, thanks for the question. I think that the best way to present this is to do a little bit of a trip through history. I think Jeff Roberts among others will appreciate this.

When the last General Plan was adopted, the City initiated no rezoning to bring the zoning and land use into conformance. Developers and property owners had to do that, right? You know any other way that they (indiscernible) now? So we proposed – actually, we’d love to rezone the whole city, but it’s very expensive to do that and we’re trying to figure out a way to bring the most and the most strategic parts of it into conformance with the new General Plan as quickly as possible after the Plan’s adopted. We just have not decided what that means and what the expense is going to be. So I’m punting the ball down the road just a little bit to decide that, to tell you what that strategy is going to be, because we haven’t agreed to it yet, the City Manager, the Mayor and the City Council. So our intent would be, with the caveat that we haven’t decided yet, to rezone strategic areas so that they would incentivize development. So think about it this way, Dave: If we decide to rezone parts of the Blackstone Corridor to allow the mixed use district to be active, and we go in and rezone that and we also perhaps even do some infrastructure investment, that would be an incentive for developers to come into that area. And if it’s not reasonable to go through


all these classifications and rezoning themselves, at their expense and their times. We just haven’t decided exactly where those areas are where we would propose rezoning by initiating –- (indiscernible) by the City.

DAVID WELLS: I still don’t understand your answer. Are you trying to say that --

PAUL NEGRETE: (Indiscernible)

DAVID WELLS: Yeah. I still don’t understand your answer. My question is, if I buy a piece of property, three years from now when all of this process is through, could there be a possibility that the City comes and relabels and rezones the property that I bought? And that’s yes or no.

MR. HOULIHAN: I’ll give you an example. If you --

DAVID WELLS: I would prefer a yes or no and then you can --

MR. HOULIHAN: Okay. Yes. I’ll give you an example. If you purchase a piece of property that has a current development on it but the General Plan is a different General Plan designation, there’s an inconsistency between the General Plan and the zoning. What the City is trying to do is make sure that there is consistency between the General Plan and the zoning designations, because if they’re inconsistent you’d have a non-conforming use. So --

DAVID WELLS: I understand that, but, I mean, theoretically, it was zoned that way in the first place because the City wanted it that way in the first place.

MR. HOULIHAN: Right, in certain circumstances they are. There’s certain areas that they’re not matching up. That’s why the City wants to come through to make sure that they – the land use is matching up with the General Plan zoning. That’s one of the purposes of going through this update. As Keith mentioned, in 2002 they only updated the General Plan, they didn’t update the zoning, so as development occurs they had to go ahead and make revisions to the General – or to the zoning in order to develop what they wanted to develop. So actually, in certain areas the City -- instead of having the developer incur those expenses, the City is incurring those expenses through that and increasing the incentives by changing that zoning, because otherwise you’d have to go through – if you purchased the property, you’d have to go through a change.

DAVID WELLS: In other words, if I buy a piece of property, I better know what the City’s got in mind for the future of that piece of property regardless of what the zoning is today.

MR. HOULIHAN: Yes, specifically the General Plan. You have to know the General Plan and zoning.

PAUL NEGRETE: What’s going to happen to the existing sovereign entities when the zoning changes, whether it’s a business or any other type of activity that has to be


zoned off of that? Are they going to have to close?

MR. HOULIHAN: No, under State law, they can continue operating, even if there is a change of zoning. That’s a State law.

ROBERT MERRILL: Yeah, Robert Merrill. Is there a – is there – maybe I can clarify if I’m understanding correctly, and that is that part of – since the old Plan, the zoning did not conform necessarily to the old General Plan, and what you’re going to try and do in this interim period at some point in time – I think that’s what Keith was talking about -- is that the City’s trying to figure out exactly how to go about making those changes from the old zoning that was out of – not necessarily tied to a general plan, and under the new General Plan you’re going to try and make the zoning tied to the Plan, but that transition period is what we’re talking about here, and the City is still trying to figure out whether or not – how it’s going to go about this, how much it’s going to fund the (indiscernible) involved to put the new designations in place. And that’s going to be over the time period of this transition.

MR. BERGTHOLD: Yeah. We’re not trying to doublespeak, and I appreciate your question, Bob, to the point. You have to look at the Land Use Diagram, and maybe we all need to have a little breakout here on Land Use Diagram 101. Most of the city doesn’t change. If you look at the Land Use Diagram, most of the city’s not changing. We’re doing some major land use recommendations, recommending changes on the corridors, Blackstone, Shaw, Ventura, Kings Canyon, California. There’s a lot of changes Downtown, but I think they’re very subtle, and more nuanced because they’re going to be related to form-based coding. And then there are some significant changes in the southeast, where we’re getting a whole new growth area next to giving a plan designation next to the plan designation, never been done in the 2002 plan, which is white on the map. And there are some pretty significant changes proposed in the west area, west of 99, to help that area be more connected to the city and the bus transit routes and the same with southwest Fresno. But the majority of the city doesn’t change. If you look at the Land Use Diagram -- we have this on our website as well -- there’s one that has a transparency, and a lot of the city just doesn’t change. So the focus here, we’re just trying to figure out, you know, where you bring – we’re trying to be more consistent. We’re also trying to be proactive on this to help the community build what’s desired by the General Plan. The best way for me to put this is we’re still trying to define what, and as soon as that’s confirmed and we evaluate the what, etcetera, then we’re going to get into the how. And we’re just a little bit ahead of the how on some of these pieces.

DARIUS ASSEMI: Darius Assemi. Are you – I guess it’s a question for Keith. Are you looking at a specific plan west of 99 as part of this kind of this plan update? And then a more detail question is, when are we going to take a look at the

General Plan and Development Code Update Initial Study Scoping Meeting – Verbatim Transcript November 27, 2012 Page 17 street widths and connectivity within the residential neighborhoods?

Street widths, connectivity within the residential neighborhoods.

MR. BERGTHOLD: Well, I think we’ve provided some very specific land use guidance in the General Plan for west of 99. And we -- just to describe it, the Shaw Avenue Corridor west of 99 is a fairly specific layout of land uses. There certainly needs to be some master planning. The areas east of Grantland, at least over to Polk between roughly Gettysburg and Clinton, are very specific, boasting some quarter-mile streets and some other things. Just so you know, we are working with a group that includes the Building Industry Association and others and we’re trying to get some pro bono help from some large design firms to come in and help us do some illustratives and scenarios for the west area.

DARIUS ASSEMI: (Indiscernible)?

MR. BERGTHOLD: A number of things, and trying to see what a – one of the euphemisms that we use for the plan and the labels is a complete neighborhood. We’d like to see some alternative designs for a complete neighborhood that the building industry has some input into so we can have some feasible alternatives once the Plan’s adopted, so we are trying to do that. Street widths and a number of those things, we’ll get into the real details in the Code and subdivision ordinance. And there are meetings and (indiscernible) taking up that (indiscernible) that meet once a week, and I don’t know – when do we get into subdivision ordinance, probably in January?

MR. HOULIHAN: I would probably think after that.

MR. BERGTHOLD: Okay, so maybe February. So we’ve got --

MR. HOULIHAN: (Indiscernible)

MR. BERGTHOLD: So when you think about this, we’ve got all these overlapping things -- just to maybe answer another question and sort of give it some perspective, we’re trying to have a comprehensive hearing draft of the General Plan be available so that will be out on the street for comments and it will be -- at about the same time that we’re trying to get the Draft EIR out on the street as well, and so we’ll have a lot of input and discussion about the draft plan, and the Code will follow quickly after that, and we’re looking for all these things to merge sometime around September.

DAVID WELLS: The present – David Wells, EVA-Knows Company. In the present study of the Downtown, the planners said that Downtown was being used as at 6% economic efficiency in some of the meetings, and that’s a tremendous amount of burden on the taxpayers over the years, past, present and future. And so when the City decides to endorse the passing of the High Speed Rail right through the center of town, with the High Speed Rail’s own statistics of over 200 trains in a 24-hour period – that’s one in every four minutes,


especially with the four-hour silent period for maintenance in the 24-hour period for the trains -- -what is the City going to do in the Environmental Impact Report? Are they going to file a Statement of Overriding Consideration to allow that kind of noise to go through Downtown? And I know they’re talking about underground passway of the rails, but the High Speed Rail Authority is not going to pay for that, even though they may have alluded to that to the City. I’ve spoken to them directly about this and that the City’s going to be responsible for paying for all the digging of the underground, below-grade-level track through the city, and they told me that specifically, that their responsibility ended at the railroad where the skirt comes in from Kerman, and the rest of it is on the City to mitigate the noise. And there won’t be enough mitigation of the noise with an underground passage or below-grade passage of the rails, because approximately only about eight of those trains are going to stop in Fresno and be going at lower speed. All the rest of them are going to zip through at 200+ miles an hour, and there’s approximately, according to their numbers, 200 to 225 trains in a 24-hour period, and those numbers have been reinforced by a court battle with outside consultants from I think Davis and Berkeley coming in and trying to argue that the numbers were false or mis – how shall I say, misleading in a upward direction, that those numbers were argued whether or not they were valid or not or whether they were just overestimated in order to get passage on it. And they seemed to come out of the argument that it was valid numbers. What is the City going to do with that kind of noise pollution in downtown Fresno with regards to the Environmental Impact Report?

MR. HOULIHAN: I’m assuming you’re asking what environmental impact has to say about that.

DAVID WELLS: Yeah.

MR. HOULIHAN: I’m glad you brought up High Speed Rail. The High Speed Rail is classified under the Environmental Impact Report as a, what we call, related project or a cumulative project, so it is not part of the General Plan case or the Development Code case. So we are treating it as not part of the project, but we are evaluating it under cumulative. And therefore, we’ll have to evaluate, as you had mentioned, noise and what the project’s contribution will be to noise to cumulative. Obviously, as you mentioned, the High Speed Rail will have noise implications. So I just want to make sure that you understand, it’s not part of this project, but we will be evaluating it as a cumulative project. As an example, other cumulative projects we’ll be looking at are, for example, development -- future development that may occur in Madera, and providing traffic into the city, across it. And there’s other development, outside the Planning Area that may end up providing traffic inside the city. So I know that this goes through the city, but because they are going through their own environmental impact report and it truly is a separate project, it is not at this time -- I guess it’s not identified as a


part of the General Plan Update.

DAVID WELLS: So in other words, the City is just going to close their eyes, ignore the noise and let it happen at supersonic speeds through Downtown.

MR. HOULIHAN: I don’t think that’s the case. They’re going through a separate environmental --

DAVID WELLS: Who’s the “they”?

MR. HOULIHAN: High Speed Rail.

DAVID WELLS: Sure. Of course they’re going through a separate EIR.

MR. HOULIHAN: Now, as far as any other environmental impact reports or – I don’t know – Keith, do you know what subsequent environmental evaluations that would have to be done?

MR. BERGTHOLD: Not that I know of, and – well, the Fresno-Bakersfield section has not been certified yet. Only the Fresno-Madera.

MR. HOULIHAN: So what he mentioned was that the Fresno to Bakersfield – right?

MR. BERGTHOLD: Has not been.

MR. HOULIHAN: --has not been certified yet with the environmental impact report, but the other one has?

MR. BERGTHOLD: The Fresno to Merced, yeah, has been certified.

MR. HOULIHAN: Will there need to be further evaluation on that --

MR. BERGTHOLD: I can’t answer that question.

MR. HOULIHAN: Yeah. Again, it’s a separate planning process than what we are going through.

DAVID WELLS: That may be, but the City makes its own plans about the city and whether or not to allow a high speed rail to go through, so, I mean, what’s the object here of having an EIR if it doesn’t even consider factors that are massively affecting the Downtown and the city of Fresno and the taxpayers that pay taxes in the city of Fresno?

MR. HOULIHAN: Yeah, but --

DAVID WELLS: This sounds like idiocy to me.

MR. HOULIHAN: As far as how the City is addressing the potential effects of what the High Speed Rail will do, it is incorporating that project as a cumulative analysis. So it is being evaluated as part of the Master EIR. It’s just not being


evaluated as the project. It’s evaluating it as one of the projects in a cumulative scenario.

PAUL NEGRETE: So that goes to the next question, then. So that goes to the next question, is that again we’re talking about intrusive noise when we started this section of the conversation. So is that going to also be considered as a separate project for noise? And then you always have to consider as a total effect of the overall plan.

MR. BERGTHOLD: Could we have your name, please?

PAUL NEGRETE: Paul Negrete.

MR. HOULIHAN: As far as the cumulative effect of noise, which would include High Speed Rail and would include noise generated from full buildout of the city and the sphere of influence, that needs to be evaluated in the Master EIR as a cumulative evaluation, and you will need to determine what level of significance that will be, okay? Quite obviously, everyone probably knows what level of significance it is, but again, as far as identifying specific measures, those measures are going to be in High Speed Rail.

PAUL NEGRETE: Is the – is the public going to have – Paul Negrete. Is the public going to have the opportunity to make comments or recommendations as to the significance or perceptive impact of the variables, in this particular case noise, or is it just going to be made by our representatives?

MR. HOULIHAN: With the High Speed Rail, that goes through a State-mandated environmental impact report process so it’s required to have public hearings. Or I guess the one portion, it went through public hearings. I don’t know if you attended those or not, but the second portion, from Fresno to Bakersfield, it hasn’t been certified yet, so I presume there’s more public hearings, so . . . I realize that we’re kind of getting off on a tangent here --

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Indiscernible).

MR. HOULIHAN: Well, no, no, just because I’ve identified it as not part of this project, but we are evaluating it as a cumulative evaluation.

DAVID WELLS: Again, to a common, ordinary citizen, that’s doublespeak and “cumulative” means nothing. What you’re saying is the Master EIR -- which it says right up there in the heading, public comments on the scope of the Master EIR, and you’re basically saying, No, we’re not going to do anything about it under the Master EIR. And so you’re offing it and kicking the can down the road by saying, Oh, you gotta go to the High Speed Rail people and their EIR to have anything said about what’s happening within the city limits of our own city under our own Master EIR.


The second question is, is the City commenting on this with the High Speed Rail’s EIR? Are they saying anything? Is there any input about it? And certainly, if there is, if it’s – if the City’s making a favorable comment on the factor of noise through the city to the High Speed Rail’s EIR, then somebody’s been bought off, because you’d have to be a fool and an idiot to make a favorable comment about 200 trains screaming through downtown Fresno. So the question is, yes or no, is the City registering any kind of comment whatsoever regarding noise and the noise factor on the High Speed Rail’s EIR?

MR. HOULIHAN: As far as the answer to that, I’m not part of that process so I’m not sure, but I will check into it.

DAVID WELLS: Thank you. That was a good last phrase answer.

PAUL NEGRETE: (Indiscernible) that you’re checking (indiscernible). Oh, when will your last statement effective and how will we (indiscernible) be able to check into it?

MR. HOULIHAN: Well, we will be identifying those comments that were raised during the Notice of Preparation and also this meeting, and then we’ll provide a table within the EIR to identify where you can see the response. If that’s to something specific, we’ll try to identify the direct answers, yes or no or just trying to (indiscernible) so that – again, this process is to make sure that we are investigating the environmental issues that are of concern of the city. Noise is a concern. Noise from the High Speed Rail obviously is a concern. The High Speed Rail will be part of the noise evaluation. I realize a distinction has been made how it’s being evaluated. But it is being evaluated.

JEFF ROBERTS: Mike, I’m going to sit down because I have some notes to go through, so I’m going to accept the microphone down here.

I’m Jeff Roberts from Granville Homes and I appreciate the opportunity to comment here tonight. I looked through the entire draft of what you did and agree I think the boxes of your initial study have been checked in the right places, and the ones that have been checked (indiscernible) as well. I need to start by making a couple comments. Granville Homes has been an active participant in the General Plan Update process since the beginning, and I guess it’s a year and a half or two years. We’ve attended a lot of meetings. We’ve attended workshops. We’ve provided comments, and by reference, we’ve submitted a couple letters, both to the Planning Commission and to the Staff before that that should reference some changes that we would like to see in the land use pattern in that map that’s over against the wall. To date, we haven’t seen any of those changes, so I have to assume they’re not going to be made. Therefore, my comments are based on a map released in August, I think August 9th, and our comments


are all still relative to that. So I’ve got -- I need to preface what I’m going to say because of what hasn’t happened with the map. But we are concerned, real concerned about some of the comments we’re making. We have a lot of projects in the city of Fresno. We are basically all in, this is where all our eggs are, in this basket, and we are in every corner of this community, and are developing in six out of seven council districts, including Downtown. We’re going to use every opportunity we can from now on to comment on the General Plan Update and the EIR and any component that might be out in public, because so far we don’t think our comments have hit the map. Therefore, we need to start with that.

I would suggest that you consider in your scope and EIR study that you look at some, if not at least one more alternative that was considered in the General Plan Update process before you were hired, in the committee – there was a committee that actually worked for over a year to come up with a draft (indiscernible) Alternative D. Alternative D is a little different than Alternative A Modified, that the Council look at. But what you have coming up for the next few months is a change in the council makeup which could result in some different philosophies in terms of land use and zoning and future growth patterns for the city.

I say this only because 10 years ago this is exactly what happened. The Staff, under a different Director’s leadership, spent years working on a general plan update, got to the point of public hearing, and it was literally thrown out the window and started over because a couple new council members opened (indiscernible). That resulted in the 2025 Plan. Here we are again with the same type of situation. I think it would be prudent of you and of the City to Alternative D or other alternatives in the original EIR process.

In terms of land use designations, I’m seeing this quite differently than I think the Staff. The land use designations that are in place today, it’s my understanding that the Downtown, a lot of those are going to remain, but in the rest of the community we’re going to change them. As far as I’m concerned, the zoning ordinance and General Plan designations are not broken. There – I don’t think there’s been a case of a developer coming to town, a qualified developer with a viable project, that hasn’t been able to figure out with them how to make that work and how to get that project done. And to go through and change all this (indiscernible), all the land use designations I think is going to create some wholesale non-conforming use issues that owners are going to find confusing and lenders are going to find quite confusing. And I think when somebody goes to rebuild a house that’s had a fire or add onto a place that was – used to be zoned this and is now zoned that, they’re going to find that it’s pretty difficult to get a loan to go forward and process this, typically. So I’m worried about that, and I’m worried about the environmental impacts of approval of a new zoning


ordinance that has never been tried at all in the past.

I asked that question about whether the City’s going to zone a (indiscernible) plan or not. I asked that question five years ago, when I was on the Housing Element Update Study. I asked it 10 years ago when I was also on the same study. And the answer was, Yes, we’re going to get to it, but it hasn’t happened, so I’m a little skeptical that the City will zone subject to the General Plan. And because of that I’m going to reiterate this comment about non-consistency, inconsistency that’s going to occur.

I realize it’s more economical to do the plan update and the rezoning at the same time, it’s easier to do under one environmental study, but I’m guessing that it might be more appropriate to do two. You do the Plan first, come back and then do a code that matches that plan after you’ve all had a chance to look and see what happens.

I’ve got some specific comments about your codes since you’re (indiscernible) and I notice that, like you mentioned, there’s some zoning districts that don’t exist today that are going to exist in the future, and there’s some that exist today that are going to go away. I don’t see how we’re going to rectify that situation, and it’s making me rather nervous. I’m going to be specific. We have about 70 acres of CM zone at the corner of Clinton and Fowler. By looking at your matrix, CM zoning won’t exist anymore. CM zoning is a great Mixed Use District that allows Commercial and Industrial to coexist. It’s a great job center zoning, but without it we don’t know what’s going to replace it, and we need to know the environment effects on us and probably the most successful shopping area in Fresno for tax base, that’s called West Shaw Avenue. Most of West Shaw is zoned CM. I don’t know how we’re going to look at the environmental impacts of taking that zoning away or making it non-performing.

There is no corresponding zone district for Rural Residential. Much of the SEGA area, much of the west area are zoned RR today, and what are you going to tell those folks that are zoned RR that are in the county? What’s going to happen – I don’t quite understand the mechanics. Same thing with agricultural land.

Now some specific comments. And I’m wrapping up here.

You have an error on page 62. You talk about Big Dry Creek Dam is less than a mile north of the sphere of influence of the city of Fresno. That isn’t accurate, and I’m not sure what you’re referring to, but it’s – it as nothing -- dry creek dam isn’t anywhere near the city of Fresno. It sounds like it’s out of another document.

I think you need to assess very closely these environmental impacts you’re removing, historic structures or structures that aren’t classified as historic that might be in a potential historic district. It’s a big issue. I know your


firm is familiar with it. I wanted to hit that.

In terms of open space, I didn’t see any reference to maintenance of open space, and one of the issues the City is facing, certainly that you’re aware, is that it’s hard to maintain our green space. And there is going to be a lot of new districts formed that someone’s going to have to be aware of (indiscernible) policy issue of whether or not we can afford it, stand-alone CODs or master CODs, what we’re going to do.

In terms of annexation policy, there’s policies proposed in your General Plan that take away or would oppose the ability for property owners like us to petition to annex to the City of Fresno, which is allowed by the State law. You need to look at the environmental effects of taking away what’s allowed by State law. I don’t think you can do it. You’re the (indiscernible).

Mr. Assemi mentioned small streets. Small streets are going to be very necessary to achieve the densities the Staff is proposing, or infill densities, yet without the ability to create the small streets we have no other alternative than to build up, which is, in this town, uneconomic to go over about three stories with surface parking. So I don’t know how you’re going to rectify that.

Sound issues is mentioned. As far as I know, this is the only community in the state that requires sound attenuation to be at the 60 db level as opposed to 65. That results in every builder having to struggle to figure out how to create outdoor (indiscernible) areas that meet your standard -- or the City’s standard. My suggestion is to pull back that standard, make it consistent with the rest of the state at 65 db. I think you will find a lot more creative development patterns result out of that and a lot less sound problems.

And last but not least, agricultural mitigation. You suggest some kind of mitigation measures for the conversion of ag land. We don’t have that here in this city, we don’t have that in this county. And I don’t know what you have in mind, but it’s not something we’re anxious to see come.

With that, thank you very much.

MR. HOULIHAN: Any others?

JOSE LUIS BARRAZA: Yeah, I do. Jose Barraza. Back in the ‘60’s, the ‘70’s, really, when they were putting in the highways and byways here in Fresno, they basically stated that the noise, the impact of the noise, because of past experiences of places like L.A. and San Francisco, they were allowed to learn how to deal with the situation, and they put up a lot of areas where they were – they lowered the freeways to those (indiscernible) where they built 18-foot walls. Basically, they said they knew what they were doing, how they did it, and they built it, based on the experiences of -- or past bad experiences that


were done in L.A. and San Francisco. Now we’re faced today with additional lines of freeway going through the intersections on 180 between Cedar and 41, because of traffic jams in that area, and that would increase the noise, and certainly, with all the walls that we have and the mounds, it doesn’t stop the noise. It clearly can be heard around those neighborhoods. So that’s a consideration to take into consideration.

The other thing, trucks. Diesels. I recommended in the past that we have the old 99 freeway that could connect right into the city through Van Ness right into the industrial district, and we can force these, by law, trucks to use those streets before they get into the city. That will also help in two ways, the congestion as well as noise.

DENNIS KOPLIS: Good evening. My name is Dennis Koplis, and I am with Prime Ranch, and I certainly can appreciate the complexity of the City’s process for an undertaking of such magnitude. The project seen in the scope as represented in Section 2, the sphere of influence that’s included as part of the Cedar Grove area includes potential impacts to 10,000 acres of prime farm ag land, approximately 3,000 acres of unique farmland, 2500 acres of farmland of statewide importance, and another 7,000, approximately, acres of farmland of local importance. As a representative for a ranching and farming family that’s been in the Valley for over a hundred years, we have great concern with both the impact to this prime ag land and the fact that the original sphere of influence on which it was based was approved way back in 2006, a time when housing demand was at a historic high. We believe that demand has fundamentally changed today and that your population and housing analysis would demonstrate that. So we’d like to have you consider as part of your environmental analysis the conclusion of the Master EIR the environmentally preferred alternatives which would reduce the impact to prime, unique and statewide importance farmland.

Part of this is based on the fact that the City has always taken a position in this General Plan that growth should occur where services are available, and clearly in the southeast area of this General Plan Update there are no services. There aren’t for wastewater, and there’s a number of important aspects of development that need to be considered.

Accordingly, as you look at water supply, water storage and other components, we would also like to specifically request that the Master EIR include in its water supply analysis a focus on dry area scenarios. We also believe that the EIR analysis should include a specific fiscal impact study on the cost of the infrastructure in expansion areas where no services exist.

Regarding Air Quality, I know that the scoping for the traffic study is probably a separate meeting, but we believe that is just what you describe under potential scenario that you have excluded construction traffic impacts to surrounding municipalities for any kind of construction


employment commute.

We also believe under Biological Resources in Section 2 you reference that there would be some impact to water quality and hydrology. We’d like to suggest that the Master EIR also include specific hydro-geomorphic analysis of any impact to ground water, any wastewater affluent percolation and any potential impact or anti-degradation it might have on surrounding rivers contiguous to the city of Fresno, and particularly aquatic studies that demonstrate that the impacts would not affect salmon that would be restored to the San Joaquin River.

So we at Prime Ranch, we appreciate you allowing us to participate in your process and look forward to being an active participant through the EIR and subsequent approval processes, and we appreciate being (indiscernible) tonight. Thank you.

MR. HOULIHAN: Thank you. Anyone else?

Hearing none, I do want to thank you very much for attending and thank you for your comments. As I mentioned, we will be gathering the comments and will include it – we’ll make sure everyone understands where our responses to your comments are, in addition to the comments that you might make in the NOP through written or email. So --

JEFF ROBERTS: Mike?

MR. HOULIHAN: Yes.

JEFF ROBERTS: Are the comments that we’ve made in the previous workshops – this is Jeff Roberts, Granville Homes. Are the comments we’ve made at previous workshops included in comments you have seen already or that you will get? The reason I ask, there’s two letters with 22 examples that --

MR. HOULIHAN: I would suggest you submit those as part of this NOP comment period.

JEFF ROBERTS: Okay.

MR. HOULIHAN: It is a different process. I know it’s generally the same process, but we’re in the environmental process. Submit the same (indiscernible).

JEFF ROBERTS: That’s fine. Thank you.

DENNIS KOPLIS: Dennis Koplis, Prime Ranch. You mentioned earlier regarding the cumulative impacts that would be analyzed that there was no timeline for buildout, so how can you establish a cumulative impact baseline and going forth snapshot?

MR. HOULIHAN: Okay, as for cumulative, obviously one of the components of cumulative is your project, and your project – or this project is the Planning Area, which


includes the city, the sphere and that area to the north, and full buildout within the Planning Area. Now, other development or cumulative projects would include those known projects that are occurring, and again, it depends on the issue area. For example, for traffic. We’re looking at full buildout, so sometime in the future, but we have to rely on some level of cumulative traffic. So for example, the Fresno COG has their 2035 RTP, so we’ll be using that information along with our full buildout information.

So it depends on the issue area. But again -- and also, as I mentioned, the High Speed Rail would be falling under the cumulative projects.

JEFF ROBERTS: The population projection I think was 970,000 –

MR. HOULIHAN: Name?

JEFF ROBERTS: Jeff Roberts. 970,000, and today, under the current 2025 General Plan, it’s 790,000. I know State Department of Finance did the 790. Who did the 970? And is that (indiscernible) the 970, or --

MR. HOULIHAN: No. Basically, as the Planning Department went through their analysis, they were focusing on 790 for 2035.

JEFF ROBERTS: 790?

MR. HOULIHAN: 790 for 2035. And I think that – or 750, 790 --

AUDIENCE MEMBER: That was – the 790 was the 2025.

MR. HOULIHAN: Right. But now they’re looking at – because of economic times, they’re looking at 2035 for that level of development.

MR. HOULIHAN: Well, how did we get to 970? 970 is occurring because we told Planning Department that, You have to look at whole buildout of your city, you can’t look at partial, partial development of your city, when we’re identifying different land uses. So when they were going through that process and were identifying them all, under certain assumptions there’s going to be much more development that’s going to occur, resulting in a greater population.

JEFF ROBERTS: But the 970 has nothing to do with 2035.

MR. HOULIHAN: No, definitely. Not even – it’s only – the 790 is part of the 970 --

JEFF ROBERTS: I follow that. Okay.

MR. HOULIHAN: Yes. And again, it’s future buildout of the entire city, so at some time in the future, we’re – the City is not identifying it’s going to happen in 2050, 2060, 2070. It’s going to be – this is our – this is their plan, and under the


assumptions of buildout of that plan there will be a population of 970,000.

JEFF ROBERTS: Well, I have a dumb question. Why do they call it the 2035 plan?

MR. HOULIHAN: You’ll notice in the – you’ll notice on the Notice of Preparation there is no reference to 2035.

JEFF ROBERTS: I didn’t notice that.

MR. HOULIHAN: Yeah. There’s no reference to 2035. The – I don’t know if you want to address this or not, regarding 2035 and what the General Plan will be. Is that proposed to be changed?

MR. BERGTHOLD: When we do the Alternatives Analysis and we’re evaluating what we’ve (indiscernible), we were instructed, because we were painting land use on every piece of ground inside the sphere in order to calculate buildout, and so based on those land uses and some midpoint assessments and density that would occur, etcera, for population of household, that’s what it came out to.

JEFF ROBERTS: Keith, the 790 --

MR. BERGTHOLD: 790 is 2025. Remember, we were actually looking at 760 or 770 when we were going the analysis. But that didn’t use up all the land in the sphere, as we indicated.

JEFF ROBERTS: No, because you grew the sphere, right? (Indiscernible)

MR. BERGTHOLD: No, we only – In the Alternatives Analysis, Alternative A allocated 1,500 units, and we used up all the land in the west area and we used up all the land in the southwest area. In B we got closer, still didn’t use it all up. I think we did allocate 2600 units in SEGA. C, low enough densities to use up the entire sphere, had to add some. D, added a little bit, pretty much close to all the sphere. E, I think, was a lot more sphere. But the idea was there was a lot of land left over in Alternative A, Alternative A and I guess B.

This calculation, since we painted all the land uses in SEGA, it’s like 41,500 -- you know, 41,000 units, if you used all the land that’s designated with pretty close to average densities with those density uses. So that’s where this number starts to grow, because you’re doing a buildout calculation, not a (indiscernible) for years. I don’t know what the ultimate horizon of SEGA will be, and it all depends on the market, the population growth, all those things.

DAVID WELLS: I would assume, though, that even though you don’t know – by the way David Wells, EVA-Knows. Even though you don’t know, there should, seems to me, be some trend line based on past population history growth and – or past population growth history, if you want to phrase it that way, and that curve could be fitted to – just to the year 2035. So my question is,


has that been done? And then whether or not it has or has not been done, if we go on your figures of approximately developing a full growth capacity within the city boundaries and the sphere of influence, it almost doubles the population of the city, yet when you look under transportation, under the document that’s been release so far as the Master EIR, there is absolutely no mention of public rapid transit. It’s just bus rapid transit. And there’s no mention of overhead suspended rapid transit that could possibly handle that kind of population load within the city boundaries, because if we increase the population load within the city boundaries based on your figures, we’re going to have traffic gridlocked up the kazoo. And yet we have 19th century projection of the transportation section of the Master EIR, with absolutely no mention whatsoever of PRT. And so my comment is I suggest you incorporate PRT and form the citizens’ committee that such a thing even exists and that they should research it and incorporate it into both the Master Plan and the Master EIR, because certainly we’re all out to, figuratively speaking, lower air pollution and how are you going to do it when you’re doubling the population and using present day methods to transport people.

One other addition to that: The City’s projecting $500 million be spent for expansion of bus rapid transit in the next 10 years. If we’re going to make that kind of corporate investment, we ought to be making it in a PRT, not to rapid transport people at 200 to 250 miles an hour and of course, two or three miles from Downtown to, let’s say Fresno State and those kinds of transportation streams instead of bus rapid transit and just widening the lanes and trying to have separate lanes for buses and separate lanes for cars and segregate things out that way to try to increase the speed of logistical transportation of the population within the city of Fresno.

So I urge the City to look into being a project leader in transportation, not a project follower, and incorporate that in their economic benefits to the city, where we can be a leader and utilize $500 million, or some portion of that, for PRT and incorporate PRT into our overall planning strategy so that we can be product leaders and manufacturers of that kind of equipment right here in the city. Thank you.

MR. HOULIHAN: Thank you for your comment.

Any others? All right, hearing none, again, I want to thank you for coming out and identifying potential issues associated with the General Plan and the Development Code Update. As I mentioned in our schedule, the next review by the public will be the Draft EIR, and it will be around March, so just keep an eye out on – keep on taking a look at the City’s website. We’ll also be publicly notifying the paper similar to this one being notified. And I want to thank you.

Transcript of Meeting...A.5 ‐ Transcript of Meeting INITIAL STUDY GENERAL PLAN AND DEVELOPMENT...

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Transcript of Transcript of Meeting...A.5 ‐ Transcript of Meeting INITIAL STUDY GENERAL PLAN AND DEVELOPMENT...